How the Covid-19 Pandemic Magnifies Existing Urban-Rural Educational Inequality in China

Abstract

Through analyzing past essays on educational inequality, our group finds that such inequality is established very early and deep in Chinese society. The most crucial cause of urban-rural inequality is the family background an extreme intergenerational inequality based on parents' educational level and family wealth. Other causes include technological differences and employment patterns. After identifying the causes, our group examines the influence of the pandemic on rural-urban inequality, and the result points out that covid elongates the gap. Furthermore, the financial capability of rural families is worsened under the covid since lots of small businesses owned by rural families shut down because the lockdown depleted their cash flows. Additionally, technology, which is very rare in rural areas compared to cities, has become vitally crucial under the context of Covid.